"A lot of musicians grew up with fashion and it became a way
of life with them," Isabelle says." If you look at any hip-hop artist now, local
or national, they're all embracing fashion. And in generic terms, it's all
self-expression."

On a recent morning, Isabelle is editing video to be shown
on a background screen during Grind Nation when he picks up the phone for this
interview.

Local flavor

Grind Nation will feature about 50 models, nine fashion
designers and 11 or so music acts. "It's all local talent," Isabelle says.
Designers include Epic, Kool Kidz, HK$M, Purple Tyrant and Fly Guys. The aforementioned
models will walk the runway to live music from Huntsville artists including Bama
Starz, Big Pope, The Syndicate, Can't Stop Muzik, Miss B, Nala Grierr and more.
When asked how live music impacts a fashion show, Isabelle says, "The first
show, the creative energy was crazy."

Grinding

Isabelle explains how he arrived at Grind Nation as his event's
appellation: "One of the terms people use when they're trying to succeed and accomplish
a goal in music or fashion or whatever is they say, 'I have to grind.' It
kind of conveys how everybody in the show local talent doing what they love and
pursuing their dreams."

Feed your head

The Grind Nation concept – mixing fashion and music – actually came about during a trip to the library. Isabelle likes to thumb through art and design
books to get visual ideas for his videography. "I found this book about how
they used to do fashion shows in the '80s in New York in the downtown clubs.
And I thought that was kind of cool. Everything together."

Up from the underground

"Huntsville's come a long way," Isabelle says, "but it's
really been behind about getting behind the underground arts scene here. So I
think (Grind Nation) is the platform for underground artists to really showcase
what they have on a broader scale, and it's all together in one show,
so you don't have to shift through and find it. One show, one night."

In tribute

The latest Grind Nation will include a tribute to Larry "LaChris"
Cole, a 21-year-old Huntsville hip-hop artist who was fatally shot at a Poole
Drive recording studio in December. "It's going to be a tribute in his music
and words," Isabelle says. "He had contacted me a month before the first (Grind
Nation) show and was saying, 'Hey I really want to be part of it.' And I said, 'This
show's already full and getting down to the wire with rehearsals, but I'll
try to get you on the one in the spring.'

"And he sent me some music. A couple months after that we
found out he'd passed in that incident. He was really creative. I felt like this would be a good time to expose people to his music who didn't know about it. His family's going to be there, so I think it's
going to be a cool night to celebrate his music and keep his memory alive in
the city."